It's interesting because it's right before computers moved in and
replaced everything. If I'd stayed another year, I'd have bought (with
my own funds) a desktop computer and put it on my desk. I'm sure that
within 2 years Boeing would have automatically supplied me with one.

It's interesting because it's right before computers moved in and
replaced everything. If I'd stayed another year, I'd have bought (with
my own funds) a desktop computer and put it on my desk. I'm sure that
within 2 years Boeing would have automatically supplied me with one.

Hmmm... I'm trying to recall when it was that Boeing started "automatically"
supplying desktop PCs. I know they didn't do that when I started here (1985). I
know they first started supplying the office assistants (they were
"secretaries" back then) with Wang word processors not too long after I
started. I seem to recall my boss getting a PC at some point. I can't recall
exactly when, but it had to be five years or more after that.
I was hired at Boeing as a software engineer (my degree is in mechanical
engineering) so I always had access to a computer, but it was always either a
computer for the system we were designing or it was test support equipment.
But a desktop computer for general use didn't occur for a long time.
Paul

It's interesting because it's right before computers moved in and
replaced everything. If I'd stayed another year, I'd have bought
(with my own funds) a desktop computer and put it on my desk. I'm
sure that within 2 years Boeing would have automatically supplied
me with one.

Hmmm... I'm trying to recall when it was that Boeing started
"automatically" supplying desktop PCs. I know they didn't do that
when I started here (1985). I know they first started supplying the
office assistants (they were "secretaries" back then) with Wang word
processors not too long after I started. I seem to recall my boss
getting a PC at some point. I can't recall exactly when, but it had
to be five years or more after that.
I was hired at Boeing as a software engineer (my degree is in
mechanical engineering) so I always had access to a computer, but it
was always either a computer for the system we were designing or it
was test support equipment. But a desktop computer for general use
didn't occur for a long time.

When I was there the Wangs were in a separate, locked room. The
operators had to go through a Wang training course, and then they
"Wanged" full time. I picked up the Wang manual and started using one in
about 5 minutes, which really annoyed the manager of the Wang pool.
(The managers of these fiefdoms worked hard at creating a mythology
around their priestesses of the Wangs. In reality, it wasn't harder than
any J-random text editor.)
I had blustered my way into the Wang pool because I was expected to
handwrite the whole document and then hand it over to a Wang priestess
to Wang it in. No way was I going to waste time doing that.

I have appreciated the story at the beginning and I always like the work of
Don. Every one that tries to both speed up things and reduce the probability of
bugs has my appreciation.
I have to try write some programs with a compiler with such sNaNs, and then
I'll be able to tell if I like this feature.

I tried turning on -Wuninitialized to compile dmd under Linux using g++, and
got pages of spurious warnings about possible use of uninitialized variables,
every one of which was wrong.<

If you haven't already, then I suggest you to write few small programs with C#
on dotnet. My limited experience in it shows me that most of the uninitialized
variables warnings it gives are for the better. So for me the situation to me
doesn't look as bad as you say.
Bye,
bearophile

Definitely. The signalling NaN change is only the compiler side of
things. We need library support as well.
BTW, is Witold contactable? There's a lot of his code that I'd love to
see in a standard library.